First a couple of short sessions during the begining of Nov

Firstly the Bristol Avon colour cleared and it was possible to float fish for a change. Trotting is s great method. You need to keep the feed going in. Feed is normally red maggots.

I tried this on several swims and caught in all of them. No large chub but to just under 4lbs, great fun on 3lb hooklink and size 18 hook. Also came along were plenty of small roach. What I found particularly interesting was the size of the dace. I had plenty over 8oz and some were approaching 12oz for sure. Now this is great news for the river, and I may just fish for them later in the winter when they will be a little heavier.

The only problem for short afternoon sessions is the speed at which it now gets dark. Still a lovely afternoon practicing my very favourite fishing method.

Next was a session with young Tyler. We were due to fish the river, but guess what we had another storm overnight and the level rose 4ft and it was that horrible brown colour that normally little feeds other than barbel. I had wanted to trot for chub plus ledger with bread flake, however things didn’t look good. So we jumped in the car and drove the short distance to the gravel pits close by. Here Tyler managed to get stuck into several perch and small roach before the cold wind got up and blew hard into his face. He did look cold so we moved to a more sheltered area.

Soon after feeding maggots for 15 minutes more perch started coming along. It was whilst spray feeding the maggots in that I noticed a few vortexes on the lakes surface where fish were well up towards the surface of the lake.

So we shifted the float down the line to fish at 4ft. Now he started to catch plenty of roach and rudd.

Several were over the 1lb mark and the largest 1lbs 3oz.

Tylers 1lbs 3oz roach

We packed up just before 4pm as we could see storm clouds gathering and sure enough on the way home it poured with hail, sleet and rain. This was not good news as I was due to fish next week on the H.Avon. It seems like any little rain we have sends the river in flood again. This could be a good year for barbel catches me thinks.

Tyler and his biggest perch of about 14oz